


The Inevitability of Dangerous Liasons

by sweettasteofbitter



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/F, Heartbreak, Hurt/Comfort, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 10:03:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15216755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweettasteofbitter/pseuds/sweettasteofbitter
Summary: Leliana doesn't need Josephine to break her heart. She is capable of doing that all by herself.Fic set pre-Inquisition.





	The Inevitability of Dangerous Liasons

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I vastly prefer fluffy content for this pairing  
> Also me: writes this
> 
> Please note that this is indeed a second person POV!

When you return from Ferelden, you find Orlais changed, but not nearly enough. You have to hide the anger that threads through your limbs when you realize that a nation could care so little about a blight licking at its borders. You fought at the Hero of Ferelden’s side. _You_ lived to tell the tale.

You greet old familiar faces, and intently avoid others. The most surprising greeting, perhaps, comes from the newly appointed Antivan ambassador to Orlais. You remember Lady Josephine Montilyet as a flushed youth, and the birthmark near the corner of her mouth as unmistakably hers even when her eyes are glistering behind a mask. At twenty, she seems to have found a company she is less ill-suited to be around than those who plot politically charged murder behind their fans and carry hidden blades in their sequined sleeves.

 _Ambassador Montilyet_. Your chest swells with pride. You even get to tell her how proud you are when she throws a ball in your honor. It’s utterly flattering…and utterly preposterous. Just before midnight, you take her hand in your own and drag her through narrow streets of cobblestone. That night, she earns the name Josie. You don’t remember how you manage to wake up in your own bed the next morning, but the lingering physicality of her hand in yours remains.

You see her often after that, accidentally and on purpose. You help each other out on multiple occasions, and you get to know each other one anecdote at the time. You’ve already put your gratitude towards her into words, but there’s a growing need to thank her more privately for her generosity.

Josephine’s apartment has one of the best views in all of Val Royeaux. You have seen the city from all possible angles, and yet, as the sunset bathes the rooftops you fall in love with Val Royeaux’s mural-covered walls all over again.

“It’s beautiful out here,” you say, your elbows resting on the banisters of the balcony.

“Isn’t it just?” Josephine pretends to stare at the view, but puts a calculated hand against the small of your back. “I count myself very lucky.”

You turn towards her.

Josephine is impossibly soft, and when you take her inside to take her out of her sheer gown and brush the strap of her chemise off her shoulder to kiss her neck, she grows even softer.

“Am I your first woman, Josie?”

It’s curiosity that makes you say it, curiosity and an involuntary tinge of possessiveness, and you curse your tongue. You curse her, for making you want to know.

Josephine merely smiles.

“Am I yours?”

Before your eyes flashes a lifetime of hurt; the ice cold heat of repressed memories careens through your veins like a vessel caught in a storm.

“Mirroring the question. Very clever,” you say, masking your discomfort with a frugal smile. Josephine’s smile dissipates, and she takes your head in her hands, rubbing at your cheeks with her thumbs as though she is wiping away invisible specks of dust.

“Leliana…I’m so sorry…”

She knows. Not the details, never the details, but she can sense the burden of the past in your bones.

(In the years to come, Josephine sets herself apart from the crowd not just by seeing through your façade, but by implicitly assuring you that she will stand by your side regardless of the horrors she has seen on your face.)

All of a sudden, you’re absolutely certain you will hurt her. She is so young, still, so malleable under your hands - you could shape her, if you wanted to, but you are deadly afraid of repeating past mistakes. Josephine has chosen a path in life, and the person you once were might be her downfall. Your enemies will become hers. You might as well be twisting the knife in her gut right this instant.

You reel back with a force that surprises even yourself. Josephine looks at you, shocked, as though you have punched her in the face, and you wish neither of you had instigated this dance. Deep within the locked cage of your ribs, your heart breaks and mends itself a hundred times. You want to love her – or, what’s worse, you already do, just a little, because she has made it so easy - but you shouldn’t.

“I…I can’t.”

 _I carry too much of my past with me at any given moment,_ you think _. You still have a chance of being someone good, and I do not want to be the catalyst of your undoing._

“It’s all right. I understand.”

You shake your head. “You don’t.”

Josephine sighs in resignation.

“Perhaps I don’t. And perhaps I never will. But I can tell that this is not my decision to make. I cannot coerce you. It is selfish to expect you to feel comfortable around me in the ways that I want you to be.” Josephine says sympathetically, words coming from someone wise beyond her years. “We can be friends,” she continues, always looking for solutions. Josephine has made it far in life, and this is how she managed to get this far in the first place. “We can be anything you want to be. A romantic tie is not a requirement for me to enjoy your company.”

A friendship might still hurt Josephine. But people are not as likely to exploit a friendship as they are a romantic entanglement, as odd as it may be. Don’t people who engage in active social circles often have more friends – and thus more opportunities for taking advantage – than lovers?

You remain quiet, alone with your thoughts, but they will not crystallize completely, no matter how hard you try. You know what you wish to have, but you also know there is no way in which you could safely have it, so you will do whatever it takes to protect Josephine from the inevitability of heartbreak.

“I will not be offended if you reject my offer,” Josephine begins. “But would you like to stay here tonight? Sleeping?”

You fold your hands together, finding some comfort in the touch of your calluses, the small scars where bowstrings snapped and arrowheads pricked to leave marks in your flesh.

“Yes,” you decide.

Josephine draws the strap of her chemise back up her shoulder with a sigh of relief that you do not yet understand. She takes your hand in hers, and sits down on the bed, silently asking you to follow her.

You do.

Together, you fall, the mattress dipping underneath your weight. Josephine pulls up the covers before she draws you near, your head against her shoulder. It is impossible to evade her smell, her warmth. It is the single most comforting gesture that has been made towards you in years.

You realize, with Josephine’s fingers carefully carding through your hair, that you need a friend like her.


End file.
